Zhenya Karelina is a second year MBA student at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Her focus is how business strategies and principles can be applied to create a better, more sustainable food system. At Sloan, she is co-president of the MIT Food and Agriculture Club and director of the Rabobank-MIT Food & Agribusiness Innovation Prize, the premier US student business plan and pitch competition. She spent her summer internship in new production innovation at Anheuser Busch. She also did marketing for a plant-based meat start-up launching a vegan pulled chicken product.

Prior to MIT, she worked in market research and insights for the pharmaceutical industry. She has a BA in Sociology and Spanish from Wellesley College.